


Welcome to Clone Club

by ce_ucumatli



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Show Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-16
Packaged: 2018-12-27 04:36:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12073659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ce_ucumatli/pseuds/ce_ucumatli
Summary: The stories of how certain people came to join Clone Club.





	1. Cosima Niehaus

**Author's Note:**

> For this entire work, I assume that the time between episode 1x01 and 5x10 is two years, even though time in the show passes in a magical way.

The email still sat in her inbox when she got back from campus on Tuesday. It had such an innocuous beginning.

_Dear Ms. Niehaus,_

__

__

_I know that we've never met, but..._

Cosima had seen it the night before, when she was baked, and skimmed it that morning, when she was rushed, and now she could read it carefully. With a clear head, she knew now that was not misreading or imagining anything – a certain Detective Elizabeth Childs from Toronto claimed she was Cosima's genetic identical. The attached photos were certainly compelling. Detective Childs in a sports bra, running in the park. Detective Childs in a business suit. Detective Childs as a _child_ , a teenager, a young adult. Detective Childs as a _baby_. Those were the photos that caught Cosima's eye the most. 

_I was contacted by another identical_ , the detective wrote, _from Germany_.

A picture of the German was attached, too, though the similarities were harder to catch there. Katja Obinger's hair and makeup were dissimilar enough that Cosima would have dismissed a similar email from her. 

_I used facial recognition software to search driver's licenses in North America_ , Beth went on, _and I found you and one other person._

One other person? Detective Childs said nothing more about her. 

_I understand you may be skeptical_.

“You bet your ass I'm skeptical,” Cosima muttered. She'd grabbed an avocado from the farmer's market on her way home, and she paused from reading to cut it open, remove the pit, and scoop some of the meat out onto a cracker. Avocado really was the butter of plant world, she thought. 

The detective's email went on. _I found your student researcher page on the UC Berkeley website, and your Facebook page..._

Cosima paused with her next spoonful of avocado halfway to her mouth. She put it down and opened a new tab on her computer. Facebook had at least fourteen users named some variation of Elizabeth Childs. Only half of them had pictures of adult women as profile pictures – the others were pictures of pets, children, or the blank Facebook standard silhouette. None of the seven she could see looked like her, and none of them lived in the Toronto area. Cosima tried searching the Toronto PD's webpage, but there was no information about individual detectives there. Probably for the best. 

_I'm especially interested in speaking with you because of your work in biology, particularly in genetics. You could be a great asset in our investigations._

Cosima finished off the avocado before reading on. The pictures were enough make her believe Detective Childs' claim of genetic relation, at least for the two of them, but Cosima wasn't sure how that was possible. They would be distant relations, and while the chance that distant relatives could look so similar was greater than zero, it wasn't much greater.

 _My mother used a fertility clinic to conceive me_ , the email said. 

Well, that was something else they had in common. Cosima's parents had gotten help after struggling for almost ten years to get pregnant on their own. They'd told Cosima all about it, about how hard it was for them, and how lucky they felt to finally have a daughter. Still, though, it did not explain the physical similarities between her and this detective. Cosima's parents had used their own cells to make her; the clinic just ensured the cells combined properly to form a healthy zygote and embryo before implanting the microscopic Cosima into her mother's womb. There had been no sperm or egg donor involved, which otherwise could have explained her resemblance to this detective all the way in eastern Canada.

 _I'd like to fly out to Berkeley to meet you face-to-face_ , Elizabeth Childs said at the end of her email. _If you have the ability to run genetic tests, I'd be happy to give you some samples of myself for you to test. I'll be as transparent with you as possible, but I'm sure you understand that I don't want anyone outside of our little genetic club to know about this. There could be safety concerns._

Safety concerns. Cosima lit a joint and leaned back. She could run the genetic tests, she thought. Why not? It could be a fun little exercise, something to do one day while her dissertation data compiled or her samples mutated. Hell, she could even run some tests on her parents while she was at it. 

Outside the apartment, she heard Emi rustling in her bag for her keys.

 _Sure_ , Cosima typed. _Come on down. I'll meet you near campus sometime._

She hit send just as her girlfriend walked in the door, and Cosima closed all the tabs on her computer. 

 

* * 

Detective Childs, or Beth, as she asked to be called, arrived at the coffee shop at exactly four o'clock. Cosima had been there for most of the afternoon, or she probably would have been late. She sat at a table by the window, watching college students and tourists going by with one eye trained on the door. It was a familiar position for her. Her past five first dates had met her here, and it was hard to remember that this was not a date. Instead of looking for a sexy girl who seemed to also be looking, Cosima was keeping an eye out for herself. Or rather, a professional version of herself. And then she walked in, wearing a light blue blouse and sunglasses. 

“Hi, I'm Beth,” Beth said. 

Her smile was so similar to Cosima's own that she pulled back. Not even the pictures of Beth could have prepared her for this. They were the same height, had the same eyes, the same bone structure, the same ears. 

“I know,” Beth said. “It's weird.”

“Have you, uh, met any of the others?” Cosima asked after Beth got some coffee from the counter. She wasn't even sure how to refer to them, all of these women who looked like her but didn't.

“Just briefly.” She didn't expand on that, but Cosima was too fascinated by the way Beth sat down and crossed her legs, the way she folded her sunglasses, and the way the she tucked her hair behind her ears, to push for more. 

“Okay. Um.” Belatedly, Cosima cleared a space on the table for Beth, who glanced over the assembled books and papers with some interest. “You mentioned something about a theory in your last email. What kind of theory or hypothesis are you going with?”

“A crazy one. It's Katja's idea. She thinks we're all clones.”

“Clones?”

“Yeah, like Dolly the sheep clones. Only, under-the-radar, totally-not-legally-made clones.”

Cosima took a minute to absorb that thought. She was familiar with some of the research into cloning and the potential medical benefits thereof, such as somatic cell nuclear transfer and the use of stem cells. “Okay,” she said, writing down _CLONES_ in block letters on a piece of paper. “Any proof of this so far?”

Beth gave her a little half smile. “I've already shown you all the proof I have so far. We all look the same.”

“Right, but, I mean, that doesn't automatically mean we were cloned. Even just one human being that's cloned would be huge international news.”

“Like I said, under-the-radar, totally-not-legally-made. If we are actually clones.”

“Right.”

“You said you could do genetic tests?”

“Yeah, sure. Give me a couple days, maybe weeks. I don't do genetic tests very often.” She smiled at Beth, but Beth just nodded.

“No problem. I'll give you hair and blood samples, just to make sure we're thorough.”

She had offered this before, via email, but hearing it come out of her mouth wiped the smile off Cosima's face. This woman was serious. “I can't really collect the samples here,” Cosima said, gesturing to the coffee shop around them. “But if you wanna come to the lab with me...”

Beth interrupted her. “That could get complicated. At least here, not too many people are looking at us, but in the lab it'll be pretty obvious we look the same. Don't you think?”

Cosima didn't see the big need for secrecy the way Beth did, but she humored her. “True. I'd still feel more comfortable collecting the samples myself, or watching you take them and bag them for me.”

“Of course. I'm staying at the Hilton nearby. We could do it in my room there if you'd like.”

It wasn't the first time Cosima had heard those exact sentences spoken together, and she smirked. “Uh, that's a little too intimate for me right now. Tell you what. There's a bathroom in the basement of the bio building on campus that not too many people use. It's usually empty, but people come in and out often enough that you can't really get away with a murder in there. How 'bout that?”

Beth smiled off into the distance like she was remembering a private joke, and nodded. “That sounds good. Right now?”

“Let's go.”

* *

An hour later, Beth dropped a few strands of her hair into a sterile baggy and used Cosima's scalpel to draw some blood from her left thumb, which then dripped into a glass vial. 

“You're sure no one's gonna notice that?” Cosima asked.

“Nah. I'm staying her for a week; it'll heal up enough by the time I get back.” Beth put a bandaid with bacitracin over the cut. 

“A week?”

A student came into the bathroom then, and Beth turned to hide her face. When the student was in a stall, Beth asked, “Is that a problem?”

“No, no problem. What are doing here for a week, though?”

Beth pointed to the samples in Cosima's hands. “Waiting on those. And maybe taking a little vacation.”

* *

Once Cosima got access to the gene sequencer and a tech who could help her use it, it only took two days to run the tests on all four of the samples she had – her own, Beth's, and her parents's. Her parents had been more than happy to provide hair and blood for her; compared to the science experiments she used to run, this was banal. When the tech called to tell her the results were in, she jaunted down to the lab with an Eskimo Pie in one hand, excited to learn something about her resemblance to Beth Childs, but actually more excited to see all the similarities she would have with her parents. Everyone always said she had her mother's eyes, her father's hair, and her grandmother's hands; she wanted to see how much the DNA backed that up. 

The tech was a friendly guy in his early thirties with a beard straight out of the seventies. He pulled up the results and mansplained a while about what they all meant while Cosima halfway tuned him out. She had color-coded the samples – red for herself, blue for Beth, white for her mother, and black for her father. On the screen in front of her, the results for red and blue were identical, while there were no significant similarities between red and either white or black. 

“I'm sorry,” she said, interrupting the tech's flow. “Just to make sure I'm seeing things correctly, are these two samples exactly the same?”

“Yes. Red and blue came from the same person.”

“With no relation whatsoever to white or black?”

“That's correct. I mean, they're obviously all human, probably from the same basic ethnic region of the world, but there's not immediate relationship there.”

“That's not possible.”

The tech stared at her. “Why not? Were you expecting similarities?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I was. Can I get a copy of these results?”

He gave them to her and she went out into the bright California sunshine, heart beating fast even though she was completely sober. Something had gone wrong. She said nothing to Beth, but googled DNA tests, unsurprised when all of the results were for ancestry sites or paternity tests. She chose the later. As she chose a lab in San Francisco that could do the tests in two days, she thought of her father's face. At no point in her life had she ever questioned the legitimacy of her parentage; there had been no reason to, and she loved her parents. She did not want anyone else to be her father, or her mother, for that matter.

The lab in San Francisco came back two days later with the same results – no genetic relation between Cosima and the people who raised her. A day after that, she sat down with Beth Childs in her favorite coffee shop, her hand over her mouth, looking at the results with her. 

“Genetically identical,” Beth said. “Just like I thought.”

“Don't you have a way of testing this through the police station or whatever?” Cosima asked. It wasn't the most pertinent issue on the table, but it had been bothering her.

“Of course, but I have to give a reason to run tests, and I'm not telling any of them about this. Besides, this way I kill two birds with one stone – I get the results, and I convince you that I'm right.”

“How is this even possible? How did my parents get a clone baby instead of their own child, when they...” Her voice broke and she stopped. She needed to talk to her parents, but what the hell was she going to tell them? Had they known about this all along? No, she thought. There's no way they knew about this. Maybe she shouldn't tell them anything, until she knew more herself.

Beth had no answers for her. She gave Cosima a pink cell phone, identical to the one Beth carried, with Beth's number preprogrammed in it. “We'll talk more soon,” Beth promised. 

“Count on it,” Cosima said.


	2. Colin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It should be obvious, but this contains spoilers.

The call came near midnight, as Felix was wrapping up the gallery opening. Most of the guests had left and Hell-wizard had packed up the DJ equipment, so Colin could hear the sounds coming from Felix's phone, if not the actual words.

“Hang on,” Felix said, stepping away from his conversation with Adele. “Sarah, Sarah, please, just back up, I don't understand what you're saying. Mrs. S? What about Mrs. S?”

The response was loud enough for Colin to understand it. “Mrs. S is dead!” Sarah shouted. “She's fucking dead, Fe!”

Events after that were a blur. Time both rushed and dragged as Felix shoved his cell phone into Art's hand and told the remaining guests to get out, that his mother had just been murdered. Colin stood off to the side, near the bartender whose name Colin had forgotten, but who seemed to be a friend. The bartender was on his own phone instantly, talking to someone named Alison, repeating the news that Mrs. S was dead and making sure Alison was okay. 

“She's safe,” he told Colin. “Alison's safe.”

“Oh, good,” Colin said. He wasn't used to this. Murder victims were a big part of his job, but he was always removed from this sort of drama, this immediacy. By the time loved ones came into Colin's line of sight, they had usually been informed of the cause, time, and place of death, and his job then was gentle support, not emotional triage. That was how he'd met Felix, after all – assuring him that he could handle the task of identifying the woman who turned out not to be his sister after all. He'd intended to press Felix on that matter again tonight, before allowing their relationship to go any further; he needed some answers.

Now those questions would need to wait.

“Felix,” he said, laying a hand on Felix's arm. “Is there anything I can do? Should I go?”

Tears coated Felix's eyes and his lips trembled as he paused. “I don't know,” he said. “Don't go yet.”

“Okay. I'll stay as long as you need me to.”

Via Art, Colin and the bartender learned that Mrs. S had been shot, in the chest, in her own home. They learned that a man was with her, someone named Ferdinand, who was also dead and whom Colin automatically assumed was her lover, but didn't say so. Everyone else reacted to Ferdinand's name like a skunk had exploded in the room - everyone except Adele, who just gaped, and Colin, who had no opinion of the man at all. Colin didn't say anything; he just listened. It sounded like they'd killed each other, both with guns in their hands and facing each other at the time of death. On the phone, Art told Sarah not to touch anything or anyone, to call the police, and to meet him outside Mrs. S's house. After he hung up and returned the phone to Felix, Art did a visual sweep of the room, stopping at Colin. 

“We're both gonna get tied up in this,” he told Colin. “Did you just meet Siobhan tonight?”

“Yes.”

Art nodded. “That's too bad,” he said.

Colin jumped to a few conclusions and said, “I'm off tomorrow. Nicholas will be the one who processes her, not me.”

Another nod. “That's good.”

Colin agreed. Felix would be able to look at Colin without imagining him autopsying his mother.

“Did you drive?” Art asked. When Colin shook his head, Art offered to drive them all – Felix, Colin, and Adele – to Mrs. S's house. 

Felix froze as the reality washed over him anew. His foster mother was dead, and his friend the homicide detective was offering to drive him over there, where her body was. Where his sister had just found her with some guy named Ferdinand. “All right,” he said. “Colin?”

“I'll go if you want me to.”

Felix gave a nod. He gave the keys to the gallery space to the bartender, who promised to lock it up safely and to look after Alison, and they followed Art out into the drizzly night air.

* * 

In his ten years with the police department, colleagues sometimes invited Colin to ride along with them, and sometimes he agreed. He'd been on traffic stops, DUI patrols, and one memorable evening breaking up a domestic disturbance. He'd never been to a crime scene before, though. By the time Art pulled up to the curb near Mrs. S's house, caution tape surrounded the property and at least six emergency vehicles lit up the night with flashing blue and red lights. A couple of neighbors lingered nearby, but Felix's sister was nowhere to be seen.

“You all stay out here,” Art said, pointing to the area outside the caution tape. “Felix, I'm gonna check it out inside; I'll tell you if it's safe for you to come in.”

After Art went inside the taped perimeter, Felix crossed his arms and took a deep breath. “Thank God Kira's not here,” he said.

Adele murmured her agreement, and they stood in silence for a while. Police officers came and went from the house, occasionally doing a double take and nodding when they saw Colin. Colin recognized some of them, but his work kept him isolated enough that he couldn't even name most of these officers. 

Fifteen minutes after their arrival, an Uber pulled up behind Art's car and two women stepped out. One was the tall blonde French woman from the art show, whom Felix had spoken to but not introduced, and the other was Felix's sister Sarah, with the dreadlocks she'd had for the middle part of the show, but a different, more relaxed outfit. _Metis_ , Colin recalled, because he'd made a mental note to look up later that goddess he'd never heard of.

“Oh my God, Felix,” she said, rushing to give him a hug. “This is so awful; I'm so sorry.” Her voice was different, too, Colin noticed. She sounded North American, not British. 

The other woman put a hand on Adele's arm. “Thank you for texting me. It's terrible, but at least we can be here.”

Adele wrapped her in a hug. “I know. God, if I'd known this might happen, I wouldn't have let Siobhan leave the party, or at least not by herself.”

“You couldn't have known.”

Sarah turned and gave both women a look that seemed awfully loaded to Colin, but Felix had his arm wrapped around her shoulders and he pulled her closer to him. “We are not talking about who could've known what,” he said. “Not here, and not bloody now.”

The others agreed, nodding in silence while another police car pulled up. Colin cleared his throat, feeling like an interloper, and extended his hand to the French woman standing near Adele. “I'm Colin,” he said. “I saw you at the opening, but...”

She had a sweet smile, he thought. “Delphine. Nice to meet you. Is Sarah still...” She gestured to the house without finishing her sentence.

Colin looked to the woman who still had her arm around Felix's waist. Before he could say anything, though, Art re-emerged from the house, walking side-by-side with Felix's sister Sarah. “Wait,” Colin said. “Hang on, I'm sorry...”

Felix detached himself from whichever Sarah he'd been hugging and went to the one next to Art. 

“It's okay,” the first one said. “I'm Cosima. That's the real Sarah over there.”

“Cosima,” he repeated. Shaking her hand, he gave her a closer look. “Identical twins?”

“Uh...” She looked over at Felix, who was absorbed in the more pressing drama happening in the house.

“Triplets?” Colin guessed again. 

Adele supplied the answer. “Clones, actually. There's, like, dozens of them, at least. It's only weird for a minute. Then you get used to it.”

It was a weird time for a joke, he thought, but he sniggered, knowing humor was a defense mechanism for some. No one else did, though, and he stopped. He thought back to the woman in the morgue two years ago, with the same face as Sarah and Cosima. He thought of the paintings in Felix's show, most of them different versions of that same face. “An exploration of identity,” Felix told him. Clones.

“Well, that's interesting,” Colin said. 

Cosima reached over and shook his hand. “Felix can fill you in on the details if you want. Welcome to Clone Club, Colin.”


	3. Sarah Stubbs

Early in the morning on September 9th, Sarah drove out to the cemetery, a bottle of sangria wrapped in a beach towel on the passenger seat. It was now a yearly ritual, visiting Aynsley's grave on her birthday, and this time Sarah was alone. Last year Chad and their kids had been with her, along with Reverend Mike and a few other friends. But now Chad and the kids lived up in Ottawa, and Reverend Mike was too busy. As Sarah approached the gravesite, she thought of Alison Hendrix, another member of their old group who was never around anymore. Sarah made a mental note to stop by Bubbles on her way home to see how Alison was doing. 

“Hey, Aynsley,” Sarah said to the grave. “I brought you some of your favorite for your birthday. I'm sorry it's just me today, though.” She unwrapped the sangria, then lay the towel on the ground and sat on it. “It's a beautiful day up here,” Sarah said. “Perfect, really. It's nice and warm, the sun is shining, and there's just a little bit of a breeze. You would love it.”

The fact that she was talking to a corpse hit her again, but she was getting practiced as pushing that discomfort aside. She uncorked the sangria and poured some of it onto the ground above Aynsley's body, then leaned the bottle against the stone.

“There ya go,” she said. “Drink up.”

The breeze picked up then, and Sarah smiled. She liked to think that was Aynsley's way of saying thank you. 

“I called your mom yesterday,” she went on. “She says the kids are doing fine and she's sorry she can't come down today. Her hip's been bothering her.” Sarah paused to let Aynsley think about that. “Everything's doing great up here, too. We got the go-ahead from the school to take the kids in Level 4 to France this year, so that's super exciting. Wish you could come! Oh, and remember Josh Carr, that boy with the auditory problems a couple years ago? You gave me that book that was just so helpful, and he's in Level 4 this year! He's doing so much better, and he's super stoked to go to Europe.”

She paused again. A robin hopped around nearby, landing on headstones and flower arrangements without getting too close to her. It reminded her of the bird feeders in Aynsley's backyard, and she told Aynsley that. She told her about local politics, about the suburban dramas that had happened since the last time she had visited. She talked until her legs cramped up from sitting so long. With tears in her eyes, she stood and tapped the top of Aynsley's grave stone.

“We miss you up here,” she said. “It's never gonna be the same without you.” 

* *

She got to Bubbles right as the store opened. It had been months since she'd been there. The last time she was there, a young man behind the counter told her Alison was busy with her school trustee work, and the time before that, Alison had been on vacation. Sarah didn't have high hopes for seeing her this time, either, but Alison had changed her phone number and hadn't responded to the card Sarah sent last month, and frankly Sarah was worried about her.

When she walked in, she recognized the bouncy tune of “With a Girl Like You” by the Troggs. She was the only customer, and no one was behind the counter, so she sang along, bobbing her head while she browsed the selection of soaps until she almost bumped into a woman stocking a lower shelf.

“Oops, I'm sorry! I didn't see you there!”

The woman had curly blonde hair and seemed to have been lost in the music herself. When she looked up at Sarah, though, Sarah froze. It was Alison's face, clear as day, but it was not Alison.

“Hello,” the woman said with a smile. She spoke slowly, with heavily accented English and her head tilted to the side. “Can I help you find something?” 

“Oh, um... actually I was looking for Alison Hendrix... the owner.”

The woman stood and regarded Sarah with her lower lip between her teeth. She was the same height as Alison, too, Sarah noticed. “Sestra Alison will be here soon,” she said. “She is getting us breakfasts.”

“Oh.” Sarah smiled again. “I didn't know Alison had any sisters.” Actually, Sarah knew for a fact that Alison was an only child, but she wasn't about to correct this woman who wore Alison's face and shop uniform. 

“We have many sisters,” the woman said gravely. 

Sarah nodded, increasingly unnerved by this woman's gaze. Over the store speakers, The Troggs went on, playing “Wild Thing.” Before the interaction got too awkward, the shop door opened and Alison Hendrix entered, pushing a baby stroller with twins. Alison's hair was shorter now, with purple streaks in it, and for a second, Sarah didn't recognize her, but her bearing and facial expressions were all Alison.

“Alison!” Sarah cried, louder than necessary, pealing herself from the shop assistant to see her friend.

“Sarah!” Alison gaped at her, almost smiling but clearly panicking at the same time. 

“I haven't see you in so long, I thought I'd come by to visit you here.”

“Oh, my goodness. It has been a long time, hasn't it.” Alison pushed the stroller further into the store and unloaded the coffee cups and paper bags from its storage compartments. Meanwhile, the woman who looked like Alison watched, fiddling with the string on her shop apron. 

“I didn't know you had twins, either!” Sarah went on. “No wonder I haven't seen you around! You know, I had heard that you were looking into trying fertility treatments again, but I didn't know it was successful!”

Before Alison could reply, the shop assistant spoke up. “They are not hers. They are my babies.”

Sarah's face burned. _Way to go, genius_ , she thought. “Oh! Oh, I'm sorry, I thought...”

“It's okay,” Alison assured her, even though her face said that it wasn't. “Um... this is my sister, Helena. She's staying with us for a while, and, uh, helping me around the shop. And these are her boys, Arthur and Donnie, Jr.”

Sarah would have asked about the sister part first, but the names caught her attention. “Donnie, Jr? Named after your Donnie?”

“Yes,” said Helena. “He is named for Donnie Hendrick.”

It would have been adorable. Alison loved babies, and these two were cute as buttons in their stroller, in shirts with dinosaurs and planets on them. The air was heavy with tension, though, even as the Troggs began yet another song, this time “Love is All Around.” Sarah had a feeling that Helena might be responsible for the music selection. 

“So how have you been, Sarah?” Alison asked, forcing a smile. 

“Oh, you know, good. I went to see Aynsley this morning.”

Alison's face relaxed instantly and she took a deep breath. “Oh, shoot, it's her birthday, isn't it?”

“Yeah. You've been busy, it's okay if you forgot.”

Helena shuffled over and took her coffee at the same time Alison took her own, and Sarah noticed that even their hands were the same. “Thank you, sestra,” Helena said.

“You know,” Sarah said, “I could have sworn you were an only child. I remember being jealous of that in school, when my sisters were picking on me all the time.”

Alison did not answer right away, but sipped her coffee and watched one of the babies chew on his seatbelt strap. Even when she did speak, she did not answer the underlying question. “What are you doing tonight, Sarah?” she asked.

“Tonight? I dunno, probably watching Netflix. Why?”

“I'd like to have you over to our house for dinner tonight. With my family.”

* *

For the second time that day, Sarah Stubbs drove to see an old friend, but this time she wasn't carrying any alcohol with her. Alison didn't need that in her life. As Sarah parked along Black Oak Drive, she watched a young family going in and out of Aynsley's old house. She wondered if they knew someone had died there. 

Oscar greeted her at the Hendrix's door, and Sarah swore he'd grown a foot since the last time she saw him. Inside she heard voices chatting and laughing, then the cry of a baby. 

“I heard you have some new cousins staying with you now, Oscar,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said. “They don't do much yet. Gemma loves them, though. She even likes changing their diapers.” He made a face as his mother appeared in the doorway. 

“Hi! Come on back,” Alison said. “There's someone else I want you to meet.”

Walking into the dining room through the kitchen, Sarah took in the changes. There were highchairs and baby supplies all around, and more pictures on the fridge than she remembered. All in all, the house was less tidy than it had been previously, but Alison's smile was wider. Helena was there, one baby over her shoulder and a carrot stick in her mouth. The other baby was in the arms of Felix, the adorable gay man who'd helped Alison with her campaign. In the dining room, Gemma and another girl her age were setting the table. There was one other woman, there, too, who drew Sarah's eye first for her utter contrast with everything Alison.

“Sarah Stubbs,” Alison said, “I'd like you to meet one of my other sisters, Sarah Manning.”

This sister, this Sarah Manning, leaned against the kitchen wall drinking a bottle of root beer. She had wild dark hair and a T-shirt for a band Sarah Stubbs had never heard of. “Cheers,” this new sister said, raising her bottle. “Great name.”

* *

Throughout dinner, Alison was more relaxed that Sarah had seen her in years. She laughed at the silly stories the children told, playfully swatted Donnie's arm, asked Felix about his boyfriend, and encouraged Clone Sarah (as the others called her at the table) to try dating sometime. Helena, Sarah quickly noticed, had some sort of social or developmental issue, and Alison or Donnie sometimes reminded her of table manners, but no one ever got upset with her. The children, especially the girls, adored Helena, and the affection was plainly mutual. 

At one point Felix stood and raised a glass. "To Sarah Stubbs," he said, "the newest member of Clone Club." Everyone toasted her as well, making her blush. She had never been toasted before.

Afterwards, as Sarah got ready to leave, Alison took her aside. “I know is this rather strange,” Alison said. “But it means a lot to me that I can share this with you.”

“Oh, honey,” Sarah pulled her in for a big hug. “You have a big, beautiful family. Honestly, I'm kind of jealous. I have a lot of sisters, too, but you know we don't get a long very much.”

Alison just laughed. “Come back sometime soon. We'd always love to have you.”


	4. Sally and Gene Niehaus

By choice, Sally and Gene lived as off-the-grid as possible when they were out to sea, which meant no internet and no phone calls except for absolute emergencies, which came in through their emergency cell. They had been out for five weeks this time, keeping in visual contact with a colleague's boat and studying marine habitats off the California and Oregon coasts. The trip had its bittersweet moments, as Gene's health was declining and they weren't sure how many more trips they could take. Sally had emailed Cosima a year ago, telling her about Gene's prostate surgery and how the doctors wanted him to stay closer to land because his blood pressure wasn't great and they worried about his heart. Cosima hadn't responded.

 _She's probably busy_ , Sally thought. She remembered her own graduate days – the sleepless nights in the lab, the last minute runs to the copy/print center, the camaraderie with other graduate students and younger professors. _Maybe she has a new girlfriend._ If she did, Sally hoped she was a good one. She'd lost count of the number of girls Cosima had dated, and those were only the ones Sally knew about. While a part of her applauded her daughter's romantic success, in recent years she had developed an on-going refrain: _Just find a nice girl, Cosima. Find a nice girl who makes you happy for more than a couple of months. Someone you can settle down with._

It wasn't even about grandchildren. Sally's sister Margaret had five grandchildren now, and her brother had ten, but Sally had never entertained much hope of having any herself. Cosima was wonderful with children, but Sally suspected her daughter didn't want any of her own. Sally just wanted Cosima to have someone to take care of her, to give her the kind of life-long happiness and support that she and Gene gave each other. She wasn't necessarily worried about her; she just wanted the best for her.

A few weeks after emailing her, she called Cosima's cell phone, only to hear that the number was disconnected. She emailed again, this time sending the message to Cosima's UMN account as well as her personal account. Still, there was no response. This was unusual. Sally and Gene were not always easy to get a hold of, but Cosima usually responded to emails and phone calls within a couple of days. _She's just busy_ , Sally told herself. _She was so excited to transfer to Minnesota, she doesn't need her mother bothering her._ And then she and Gene were out to sea again, off the grid.

For Thanksgiving, she and Gene went up to Sacramento to visit her sister Margaret's family. All three of Margaret's children were there, with their spouses and children, and all of them asked after Cosima. 

“Oh, she's just so busy,” Sally said. 

“We invited her to come,” Gene said, “but she never got back to us. I think she must've gotten eaten by the lab up there.” He laughed, but Sally knew he was worried. 

Margaret's son Josh frowned. “It's not like her not to reply, though.” He and Cosima were born only a few weeks apart, and often joked that they should have been siblings. Once he could separate himself from the family crowd long enough, he took out his cell phone. Over his shoulder, Sally saw him checking Facebook, and she was about to scold him until he turned to her and showed her the screen. “Did Cosima delete her Facebook?”

“Oh, I don't know. You know we don't do social media.” 

“Yeah, but she does. Or she did. She's not listed in my friends anymore, and there are no search results for Cosima Niehaus. I checked a couple mutuals, and she's not listed in their friends, either.”

“Well, you know, a lot of people are getting off Facebook these days. It's not healthy, I think, to be on there too much anyway.”

That night, in their bed at the Best Western near Margaret's house, Sally and Gene stared up at the ceiling. “Don't worry too much about her,” Gene said. “She's young. She's allowed to go wandering once in a while without telling anyone.”

She wondered how much he was trying to convince himself. “She's thirty-two,” she reminded him. “She's not as young as she used to be.”

“Thirty-two is still young. And she's curious. Maybe she found a great project that took her around the world, and she just hasn't gotten the chance to tell us about it, yet? Remember when she went off to Iceland for a semester, and didn't tell us until she came back?”

Of course she remembered. “What if something's happened to her, though?”

“If something really bad had happened, the school would have called us. We're listed as her emergency contacts. No news is.... not necessarily bad news.”

That was in November. In March they'd sent Cosima a birthday card with a check for $200, but the post office returned it. Now it was late July and Sally sat in her favorite cafe in Fisherman's Wharf, sipping a chai latte and eating quiche as she sorted through the hundreds of emails that had accumulated during their voyage. Most were garbage. A few were from past students, asking for recommendations or research help, which she was happy to give. A few more were from colleagues, co-authors, academic journals, and assorted scientists invested in her work. She had just deleted a few dozen emails when she paused, cursor over the little trashcan, when she saw the subject on the next email. _Hi Mom_. Suddenly wide awake, she opened the message and read it a few times, surprised by the tears pricking her eyes.

_Hi Mom,_

_I'm sorry it's been so long since I've been in touch. Things have been pretty crazy here. There's a lot that I want to catch you up on, but I'd rather do it in person. I'm in Latin America right now, on a research trip, but I'll be in Toronto for Christmas. I'd love it if you guys could come up to see me. There's some people I want you to meet, too._

_I hope to see you soon._

_Love,_

_Cosima_

 

A research trip in Latin America. Well, that was a thousand times better than all of the horrible scenarios Sally had played in her mind over the past several months to explain Cosima's silence, but it didn't quite match with what she knew of Cosima's PhD studies in evolutionary biology. Or did it? _Maybe she's in the Galapagos_ , she thought, _looking at tortoises. Or studying the physiology of remote tribes in the Amazon._

She emailed back immediately, saying that they would love to see her in Toronto for Christmas, and could Cosima please tell them which dates to buy the plane tickets for. Normally they spent Christmas with Gene's family in Orange County, but after not hearing from her daughter for a year and a half, and not seeing her in person for a little longer, Sally Niehaus would happily fly to eastern Canada in December.

* * * 

They only got Cosima's new phone number the day before they flew out to see her. For all the months prior, Cosima insisted on communicating by email only, and in those emails she'd said next to nothing about herself or what she was up to these days, except that she was doing well. Sally's questions about what she was doing in Latin America, or Toronto for that matter, went unanswered, but Cosima said she was sorry to hear about Gene's health problems and happy to hear about their recent sea trips. Cosima said she missed them and couldn't wait to see them again. Anything else, Sally supposed, would have to wait. 

The trip to Toronto was predictably miserable. The Niehauses were boat people, not plane people, and the changes in air travel since they'd last flown in the 1990s did not improve their feelings towards it. If they were flying for any other reason, Gene would have griped the entire time, and Sally might have found a way out of it, but on the trip, they just looked at each other, squeezed each other's hands, and smiled. 

At the airport, they had to contend with hordes of other people traveling for the holidays or winter break, and by the time they'd gotten their luggage and passed through the doors warning that one could not re-enter except through security, they were emotionally cooked. 

And then, standing there amongst the people holding signs with names or bouquets of Welcome Home balloons, was Cosima. 

She wore her red wool coat she'd had in Minnesota the one time they'd visited her there. She still had dreadlocks, bound up at the crown of her head, and thick-framed glasses, and when she saw her parents she still gave that big toothy smile that Sally would know anywhere. They hugged and Sally kissed her cheek and Cosima took their largest suitcase, and soon they were outside in the frigid Toronto winter. Cosima had a car, a light blue Toyota Yaris, that they piled into and which Cosima did not seem totally comfortable driving. 

“It's a rental,” she explained. “We just got back two days ago, and we're only gonna be here for a month or two, so we're just renting whenever we need to, or taking Ubers.”

 _We._ Sally did not miss the plural pronoun, and from the look in Gene's eye, neither did he. Instead of asking about that, though, she asked, “Are you going back to Latin America, then?”

“Um, no, actually. Probably Israel. Maybe Morocco. We haven't decided yet.”

“I see...” She did not see. “What kind of research are you doing, exactly, that takes you all over the world like this? I hope you're getting some kind of funding for it.”

“Oh, yeah, we have a, um, a pretty generous donor. Money's not really an object, thankfully.”

The first question, Sally noticed, went unanswered. Was this going to be a trend, then? Cosima hiding things, avoiding topics, being vague? “What brings you to Toronto, then?” she asked. “Does Minnesota have a program up here?”

“Oh,” Cosima said, “it's not through the university.”

“Who is it through, then?” Irritation threatened at the front of her brain, but she reminded herself to stay calm. 

“We, um...” Cosima scratched her head. She was focused on the road, but Sally got the feeling that she wouldn't have made eye contact even if she weren't driving. “We have a nonprofit foundation that handles the finances and administrative aspects.”

“Mmhm.” Sally turned to look at her husband in the back seat. He was frowning, watching Cosima drive. 

“You're being awfully vague, Cos,” he said, not unkindly. “Don't think we haven't noticed.”

Cosima navigated her way through a brief construction zone before answering him. “I know,” she said finally. “There's a lot. A lot that I need to tell you guys. I just want to do it face-to-face, okay? Like, when I'm not driving.”

“Okay.”

“Whatever it is,” Sally said, laying her hand on Cosima's shoulder, “I don't want you to be afraid to tell us. We'll always love you, you know that.”

Cosima half-smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. “I know. I love you, too.”

 

* * 

Their hotel was near a residential section of Toronto, near a park that must be beautiful in the summer. Cosima helped them carry their luggage up and waited while they settled into the suite that she had reserved for them. The suite had a couch, coffee table, and arm chair. When Sally emerged from the bedroom, Cosima was staring out the window, fidgeting with one of her rings and frowning. 

“Gene'll be out in a minute,” she said, standing beside her daughter. “Is there anything that you don't want him to know just yet?” She kept her voice low, just in case. 

“No,” Cosima said. “I want to tell both of you.”

They made some tea in the little pot they found in the kitchenette, then sat around the coffee table in the living area. Cosima was nervous; Sally hadn't seen her this nervous since high school. She reached over and took Cosima's hand and squeezed it. “Why don't you tell us what's going on? You'll feel better after you do.”

After a deep breath, Cosima began. “Do you remember,” she said, “when you got pregnant with me?”

 _Pregnant?_ Sally's eyes widened, and she nodded, still holding her daughter's hand. “Of course I do.”

“You got in vitro because you couldn't get pregnant, and you had to try a couple different clinics, or doctors or whatever.”

“That's right.”

“And they talked you through the whole process, about how they combined your cells in the lab and implanted them into you, and that I was just as much yours as if you'd made me naturally.”

“Yes....” If Cosima was trying to tell them that she was pregnant, she was doing it in an awfully round-about way. But maybe that wasn't what she was trying to say at all. She remembered then one of her last conversations with Cosima, before Cosima vanished into the ether and stopped returning calls and emails. Cosima had asked for more information about the clinic her parents had used to conceive her. She'd gotten blood and hair samples from both of them, saying she was going to run a genetic test. Sally squeezed her hand again. “You are ours, sweetie, no matter how... scientific the process of getting you was. You know that better than anyone, I would think, considering your background.”

Cosima looked down at the coffee table and scratched her forehead, then her nose, then her ear. “Yeah, that's kinda what I want to talk about.”

There was another pause. “We've told you everything we can about all that,” Gene said. “We can tell you again, but there's nothing new.”

“I found out something.” Cosima looked back up at them now, her jaw set. “Just before I moved to Minnesota. I found out that, when they said they used your cells to make an embryo, to make me, they lied.” Now she looked directly at her mother. “Whatever they did with your cells, they didn't put them back inside you. They used you as an unknowing donor in an illegal science experiment, and I was the result of that.”

Out of all of the things Sally had expected Cosima to say, that wasn't close to any of them. “A science experiment?” she repeated.

“Yes.” Cosima took a deep, shuddering breath. “In human cloning.”

In the silence that followed, the heater turned itself on, filling the room with whirrs and clatters, and outside an emergency siren went by. Down the hall someone closed a door and called out to someone else. Cosima's parents just stared at her. 

“I know it sounds weird,” Cosima said. “But it's true. I've seen all the evidence, I've run the tests myself, I've met the people who started the experiment and some of the ones who kept it going for years and years and years without making it public. I can prove it to you if you let me.”

Gene shifted on the couch, crossing and uncrossing his arms. “Human cloning? That's not possible. I've never seen any research that backs up that possibility. I mean, organs, maybe, but...”

“I know, and neither had I, because they kept it all under such tight wraps, but it was there. I've seen it.”

“So you're saying that you're a clone?” Sally asked.

“Yes.”

She took another moment to digest that. Whenever she imagined human clones, she pictured some science fiction android-type creatures who lacked everything that made humans, well, human. That, or she imagined that terrible Michael Keaton movie from the 90s. 

“And there are... others?” Sally ventured. “Other... clones?”

“Yes. There are 274 of us still living, that we know of. Some of them live here in Toronto; that's why I'm here, actually. We're, uh... doing Christmas together.” She smiled at that, and Sally imagined a room full of Cosimas sitting around a tree, with identical dreadlocks and red coats.

“You'll have to forgive me, sweetie,” Sally said, “but that does seem a little farfetched.”

“I know, I know. It's totally crazy, but it's true.”

“How did you find out about all this?” Gene asked. “If it's some top secret illegal experiment?”

Cosima sat up straight and adjusted her glasses, preparing to launch into a spiel. “Well, one of the clones here in Toronto, Beth Childs, contacted me about two years ago. She'd been contacted by a German woman who thought we might all be clones, so Beth ran a facial-recognition test though the driver's license records in Canada and the US. She found me and another woman living close to Toronto, and she contacted both of us. Once we'd met, it became pretty obvious that we were at least related, and I ran some genetic tests that proved that we were identical.”

 _That's why she wanted our hair and blood. She never said a word about this, though..._ “Two years ago? That's when you changed your research focus.”

“Yes. And that's why. I did the scientific work to find out where we all came from, Beth did the detective work, and Alison provided the funds.”

Another silence followed, and Sally looked over to her husband. By the frown on his face, she could tell he wasn't buying it. She remembered the episode of This American Life she'd heard, about people with delusional disorders. “But Cosima,” she said, “you look like me. Everyone says so.”

“I know, but that's... that's just chance. They probably chose you as a donor because you matched the physical profile. Plus, there's all kind of epigenetic and environmental factors that influence how we look and how we perceive each other and ourselves, and social expectations definitely play a role, too. People _want_ me to look like you because I'm your daughter, and they see what they want to see. _You_ see what you want to see.”

Sally leaned forward and looked at Cosima's face. Their eyes and hair were the same color, and her cheeks were rounded in the same way Sally's were. Even when she tried, it was impossible not to see a child that Sally herself had created when she looked at Cosima. She shook her head. “It's too hard to believe. I'm sorry.”

Cosima nodded. Maybe she had expected that response. “I understand. Are you open to some convincing, though?”

“That depends,” Gene said, “what kind of convincing?”

“Well, I'd like for you to meet my sisters.”

 _Sisters._ When Cosima was born, Sally had been in her late thirties, and she'd spent nearly a decade trying to have a child. They'd been over the moon to have Cosima, but could not put themselves through any more stress to try having another child. It had hurt knowing Cosima would never have siblings. “Your sisters,” Sally repeated. 

“Yeah, that's what we call each other. We're genetic identicals, so it fits, and we've gotten pretty close over the past two years.”

“All 274 of you?” Gene asked. 

“Oh, no, just the ones who live close by. I mean, we're all sisters, but I was referring to just a few.”

They leaned back and thought about it. Looking at her daughter's face, Sally was reminded of when Cosima came out of the closet, aged fourteen, and so desperately wanted her parents to support her. They had, of course; there had been no surprise in her coming out. Sally leaned over and again took the hands of her daughter, now aged thirty-two, and repeated what she'd told her then. “No matter what, you are still our daughter, and we love you more than anything in this world.”

That afternoon, Cosima drove them several blocks east, into an old neighborhood of brick duplexes shaded by oak trees. The contrast in Cosima's demeanor between now and earlier in the day was striking. Where she had been stiff and withdrawn before, now she was relaxed and chatty. “Normally we'd be at Alison's house,” she said. “But they had a pipe burst a couple days ago, so we're celebrating at Sarah's house instead. It's actually a lot more convenient. Well, for us anyways.”

Cosima parked behind red minivan and they all got out. As they approached the house, they heard music playing and people talking, and suddenly Sally was nervous. “It's okay,” Cosima said. “You'll like everybody.”

The woman who answered the door was not Cosima's look-alike, and yet she was. Her face was shaped the same as Cosima's, but her expression was different. Her eyes had the wide-eyed wonder of a child, underneath a mass of curly blonde hair. “Hello Doctor and Doctor Niehaus,” she said. “Welcome to Christmas.” She stood aside to let them all in. 

Cosima put her hand on the woman's shoulder and introduced her. “Mom, Dad, this is my sister Helena.”

Sally and Gene shook her hand and allowed her to take their coats. Cosima was beaming, like Helena proved the clone theory. Sally did not tell her that, based on appearance, Helena was probably just her regular sister at best, taken from a separate embryo created during their IVF process and given to another mother, but not her clone. They were ushered into the living room, where two more Cosima-ish women waited. There was Alison, with purple streaked hair and a fleece jacket Cosima would never be caught dead in, and Sarah, who admittedly did look quite a bit like Cosima. 

“Well, it's very nice to meet you all,” Sally managed. Gene nodded and muttered something that might've been agreement. 

In a little playpen were two baby boys playing with stuffed animals, and Sally skirted the awkward meeting by going over to them while Gene complimented the Christmas tree. Outside, there seemed to be more children playing in the back yard. Behind her, one of them women said, “Cosima, your parents are handling this so well. You remember what my mother said, don't you?”

“No, actually. What did she say?”

“Well, first she didn't believe you're my clone. She still says we're half-sisters. Then she said you were mulatto.”

Cosima laughed at that, and Sally felt her face burn. 

A door in the kitchen opened up to the backyard and an elementary-aged girl stepped inside just long enough to see Cosima and her parents. Then she turned back and yelled, “They're here!” Soon the population density of the house doubled, with four children, three men, and a tall blonde woman who definitely wasn't one of Cosima's clones. They were all flushed and bundled from playing outside, and for a moment chaos reigned as children were told to take off boots, hats, and coats, where to put them, and everyone figured out where to put themselves without being in the way. Sally was trying to figure out which children belonged to which adults when one of the girls unwrapped her scarf, removed her hat, and Sally almost had to sit down. Standing in this stranger's kitchen was Cosima, twenty years earlier. She even had pigtails. 

“Yeah,” Cosima said, seeing her mother's face. “That's Charlotte. She's the youngest one of us.”

“She looks just like you. I mean, exactly like you.” She reached out to touch the girl, but caught herself in time. This child was not Cosima, but she could definitely be Cosima's clone. 

More introductions followed, and relationships were clarified. Oscar and Gemma, and their father Donnie, went with Alison. The babies went with Helena. The bubbly little girl with curly hair was Kira, Sarah's daughter. There was Sarah's brother Felix and his boyfriend Colin. 

“And this is Delphine,” Cosima said last, “my fiancée.”

Before Gene or Sally to react to that, Alison spun around. “What?!” she shouted. “What, when... were you planning on telling us?”

Delphine smiled at Cosima and draped an arm around her shoulders. “Well, we wanted to tell you the other day.”

“But you had enough drama of your own,” Cosima finished. She was still watching her parents, holding her breath. 

Sally approached her first, smiling broadly. “Well, Delphine, it's lovely to meet you. Finally, it seems.”

“Yes,” Gene chimed in, shaking her hand. “I would say welcome to the family, but that seems to be the other way around at the moment.”

Over a light dinner of sandwiches, Sally and Gene found themselves the center of attention. Charlotte and Kira wanted to know about their life at sea, Sarah wanted to hear about life in California, and everyone wanted to hear about Cosima as a child. 

"It must be difficult," Alison said at one point, "to learn that she's not the child you thought she was."

It was a blunt way to put it, and a couple people raised their eyebrows at her. Next to Gene, Cosima looked at both of her parents, the anxiety creeping back into her face. Gene draped his arm over her shoulders, like he used to do when they sat on the couch together, looking at books. "It's unexpected," he said. "It'll take some time to wrap our heads around it."

"I think I would be angry," Alison went on. "I mean, I was angry when I found out that I was a clone. But in your position, I think I would be just..." She shook her head and drank some more wine, left speechless by the prospect.

Sally leaned around Gene to pat her daughter's back. "I'm not angry. I could be angry that they never told us. I mean, there could've been genetic issues that we wouldn't have known about, and genetic issues that we worried about without reason. But I'm not angry." She directed her next sentence to Cosima. "They gave us you."

All three of them had tears in their eyes. The larger family around the table gave them a moment before Felix scooted his chair back. "Well, that's about as much sap as I can handle in such a short time span. Anyone else want some of those Mexican chocolates this wonder child brought back for us?"

* *

After midnight, Cosima and Delphine sat wrapped in a comforter on Sarah's back porch, clutching hot mugs of cocoa with peppermint schnapps added. Cosima's parents were back in their hotel, and they had plans to get lunch, just the four of them, the next day. The Hendrixes had gone, the girls were in bed upstairs, Helena was taking care of the babies in the living room, and the back porch was the only place they could have any privacy.

“Well, I think that went well,” Cosima said.

Delphine tucked her hand between Cosima's thighs. “Yes, I think so.” 

“They totally didn't believe me at first. Even after they met Sarah and Helena and Alison, it didn't really click with them. Not until they saw Charlotte.”

“It does make more compelling evidence. It will be strange when I finally see pictures of you a child, though.”

Cosima cocked her head. “You've never seen pictures of me as a kid?”

“No. I probably could have when I was at Dyad, but I never did.”

“Huh.” She drank some more schnapps cocoa and snuggled closer to Delphine. “Alison about shit herself when I called you my fiancée, did you see that?”

Delphine giggled. “Yes. I wasn't sure you would tell everyone like that, actually. She was more angry at Sarah, though, than at you.”

“Yeah, well, Sarah was just keeping her promise to let me tell everyone myself. She keeps her mouth shut when she needs to.”

“Certainly.”

They sat together in comfortable silence, listening to the breeze rustle the few remaining dead leaves on the trees and distant traffic going by. Cosima loved being with her sisters and her parents, but nothing was as good as being alone with Delphine. She toyed with one of her rings. “Do you want me to change my name?” she asked Delphine.

“No? Why would I?”

“You know, when we get married. I could take your last name if you wanted me to.”

Laughter seasoned Delphine's words when she replied. “Do you want to have my last name?”

“I mean, I'd much rather have you, but I figured I'd put it out there.”

Delphine shook her head. “I want you to keep your name. Names are powerful, you know. They're a tremendous part of who we are.” After a pause, she asked, “Do you want me to change my name?”

“Nope. Then I couldn't call you Dr. Cormier anymore. Besides, there's already two doctor Niehauses, and if I finish my dissertaion, there will be one more. We don't really need a fourth one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't help going back to a Cophine POV at the end. I like writing them too much.


End file.
